Last summer at Esalen I taught a workshop on accomplishing more by doing less for twenty people. These participants ran small businesses or were employees in small and large companies. I was leading them in explorations on reducing fears, assumptions, distractions, and resistance — perhaps another shorthand for how to become more effective in work and outside of work.
During one of our group discussions, the participants and I were talking about how to be most effective in business. I presented this question: “How do you respond to a particular need or challenge in growing or managing a business?” A few people responded that they act with a sense of composure, with a “whatever the Universe may bring me” mentality. They described this as their central belief about how to be effective in business and in life. They were probably thinking they were reinforcing a message of my workshop, since I am a Zen teacher as well as a businessman. Perhaps they were responding with language they thought I’d especially resonate with.
Hearing these words, I responded, “When it comes to growing or managing a business, I’m not a whatever the Universe brings me kind of guy. I’m a write the f*#%ing business plan kind of guy.”
That got their attention. Accepting what is is an essential approach to life. But so is fighting for change. And if you want success in business — and in relationships, too, for that matter — then you need tenacity, focus, urgency, an intense achievement drive, and strategic planning.
This chapter focuses on identifying and clarifying where you are in your life now, the gaps between your current situation and where you want to be, and creating a plan for bridging those gaps. At the same time the chapter offers tools and practices for developing more calm and ease by more fully accepting yourself.
1. Reflect on your life as if you were an orchestra leader (page 146). Write or consider:
What are your current goals?
What are you doing to realize them?
What skills are you already adept at, and where do you need more practice?
2. Practice cultivating spaciousness (page 148).
3. Do the “two eulogies” exercise (page 149).
4. Set your intention (page 151) by writing down all the ways you’d like to improve your life.
5. Identify your resistance (page 154) to pursuing these changes.
6. Measure the distance (page 157) of the creative gaps between where you are and where you want to be in terms of finances, joy, and impact.
7. Write a personal business plan (page 162) that converts all of this into measurable goals or steps along a specific timeline.
8. For one week, maintain a dual happiness index (page 166).
9. Now, every day, or anytime, do the “nothing lacking” practice (page 169).
10. Revise your personal business plan so that it includes scheduled laziness (page 170).
In the Zen tradition, the expression “the Way-seeking mind” refers to the decision to follow the path of waking up, of self-discovery, and of helping others. It is proactive, and sticking to it takes decisiveness, determination, and perseverance. It is also predicated on the need for change, within and without. Though it is not a path of self-improvement, the primary focus of change is oneself: shedding self-defeating habits and false beliefs (particularly self-gratifications, the seductions of wealth, fame, and comfort, and so on) to become more self-aware and thus more effective at driving change and improving the world. It is a path that embraces both change and acceptance, simultaneously. Accepting what is, by definition, creates the baseline for our understanding of reality and for our decisions about what needs to change. If we can’t see reality, and can’t accept what we see, then we’ll never act effectively. Accepting whatever the universe brings can also be an important way to avoid wasting time and energy trying to change what cannot be changed. All by itself, though, accepting what is is not enough. The imbalanced, shadow side of acceptance is passivity, laziness, and avoidance. It is not leadership. If we see a window of opportunity and fail to jump through it, no one benefits.
On the other hand, the shadow side of fighting for change is becoming controlling and rigid in our concepts. In truth, our everyday lives are largely centered around coping with change: managing it, responding to it, and sometimes driving or creating it. To be effective requires knowing when to practice acceptance and when to drive change. This is more difficult than it sounds. Balance doesn’t mean finding the middle ground between acceptance and drive. It means having the freedom, insight, and skill to embody both at once in order to act appropriately in each moment. To adjust continually and accept constantly. It is maddeningly challenging, yet simple, and forms the core of effectiveness.
Real change is at the heart of what it means to be human. With each change we learn and we re-create ourselves. We are able to see in a way that was not previously possible. We can act and achieve in a way that we could not before. With each change the world is different, our relationships are transformed. With each change we are continually expanding our ability to respond, to create, to envision, and to build our future. To clarify my terminology, the phrase “fight for change” could also be expressed as “lead to improve.” That is, even as we accept that all things change, we recognize that many things can be improved, and so we take personal responsibility to actively pursue improvement. Thus, we don’t simply wait for problems to arise and then try to solve them; we take the initiative to understand our current situation and envision a better future, a better now. We develop a vision, know where we mean to go, and start walking. This is leadership, and it is as vital to our personal lives as to our work lives. Indeed, they are intimately connected, and what “leading to improve” means in each can also be strikingly similar: seeing how we ourselves can be more open, honest, and effective, and exploring how we can better give of ourselves and bring out the best in others. Even as we consider the challenges, opportunities, and threats we will inevitably face, we can see that effectiveness rests in taking a balanced approach: anticipating that some problems will arise from within ourselves and some from without. Some challenges will require action, some patience. Some will need money and resources, some understanding.
It’s mistaken to see our inner and outer worlds, our personal and work lives, our spiritual and community selves, as separate, disconnected. Zen provides useful, powerful tools and practices for solving real-world problems. Meanwhile, in pursuing strategies to improve our world, business can express our best selves and our most high-minded ideals — at all levels, by creating new products and services, by increasing prosperity, and by developing the talents and effectiveness of its own workforce. As we will explore more fully in chapter 8, all these results can simultaneously benefit ourselves, our coworkers, and society at large. I was recently on the board of directors of a nonprofit called Social Venture Network. One of its vision statements is “changing the way the world does business.” Its mission is to change the underlying values and structure of business, so business isn’t solely defined as “maximizing shareholder wealth.” The key is realizing, or remembering, that we are all shareholders. Each problem we solve, each time we lead the fight for change on any level, we all have a stake in success.
Tom is a coaching client in his midfifties who is CEO of a three- hundred-person service company in San Francisco. He began working in this company nearly thirty years ago. He has worked hard his entire adult life. His company is surpassing its objectives, and he has had a good deal of financial success. He is married and has two teenage children. So much is working well in his life, yet he acknowledges being a type A personality — ambitious, driven, verging on being a workaholic (if not, at times, actually being one). When we started working together, he told me he was struggling. He was tired and burned-out. He wondered, “What’s next? What have I been missing, and is this all there is to life?” He didn’t want to work so relentlessly. He couldn’t sustain the pace anymore, and yet what would he do and who would he be if he weren’t working? He wanted to change his way of being. He wanted to either take a sabbatical from his company or find an alternative way to approach work. And he wanted to make changes in how he approached and lived his life.
Our conversations began by assessing his work life now and envisioning in concrete terms what and how he wanted to change. One of my first questions was, “What brings you joy at your work now?” I also asked him how he got things done. How did he problem solve? What was the quality of his current work? So often, people only look at the “what” — the day-to-day activities, the tasks, meetings, emails, negotiations, and results. Some activities can appear immovable, but our perception of them can change depending on how we approach them. Ask yourself, How do I approach my work?
Tom’s vision was twofold. He wanted to shift from being a full-time CEO to more of a chairman with his current company, and he wanted to identify his next big challenge, personally and professionally. In his company, Tom had assembled an excellent, talented, and committed management team. I also met with his team and was told they considered Tom a micromanager. Many of his managers had been with him for more than ten years and were quite capable of running the company. They admired and wanted Tom’s vision, but they believed the company would operate more effectively if he were less hands-on. Since this was also what Tom wanted, the solution was clear: Tom just needed to change his management style, and then everyone would be happier, and the company might operate more successfully.
With a sense of pride, Tom described his current work approach. He was like a bulldog — relentless, driving, tight, and assertive. If this approach was appropriate and effective before, it was getting in his way now. I suggested he hold in mind a different image, that of an orchestra leader — not the person playing the instruments but the person directing the musicians from a slightly higher level. Conductors hold a clear vision and mission; they know the score. They also train and mentor the musicians. Sometimes the conductor is passionate and involved; other times he or she just sets the tone or maintains the rhythm. This persona, this new story, appealed to him, so we set to work.
I introduced Tom to meditation and mindfulness practice. He was, to put it mildly, skeptical. He resisted. “You want me to do what! Sit still for two minutes and follow my breath!” is just one example of his reactions. Yet, after a few months of daily practice, meditation became as routine as brushing his teeth. For over a year, we worked to shift habits he had learned over a lifetime — by slowing down the pace and developing awareness of his thoughts, his body, his emotions.
I also introduced the practice of cultivating spaciousness. I suggested that whenever he was feeling the anxiety of “not enough time and too much to do,” he pause, bring his attention to his breath, and notice the space around him. Usually, all our focus and attention is on our tasks, other people, and objects. It is easy to feel tight, as if we lack the room to move or even to breathe. But what about the spaces that are in between? It is possible to bring attention to just noticing the amount of space that exists wherever you may be. Bringing attention to open areas, to what is in between, is a way to cultivate more spaciousness in the midst of our busy lives.
These practices facilitated the process of aligning Tom’s intentions with his actions. Eventually, shifting this image and changing his activity made an enormous difference in his enjoyment of his work. This shift also catapulted the company to significantly greater achievements. Changing both what Tom did and how he worked increased his happiness and effectiveness.
As the quality of Tom’s work life improved, it influenced the rest of his life. Previously, he would bring his work home with him, along with his hard-driving attitude. He began to relax more in other aspects of his life, including interactions with his wife and children. Spending time with friends and with hobbies became more important and more meaningful. In turn, our discussion of his next step turned more toward questions of his passions. What was his next big game? We used this term to describe how he might transform some of his hobbies into work that would benefit underserved populations or help relieve suffering in developing countries, whether that meant starting a social enterprise, running a nonprofit organization, or joining a nonprofit board of directors.
Today, Tom and I have been working together for more than two years, and the change has been transformational. It hasn’t been easy, and it’s far from over, but it’s been immensely gratifying for both of us. It has been an ongoing lesson in how change and acceptance, intention and action, inner and outer awareness, when properly balanced, create a powerful, inspiring, creative momentum that changes us and our world.
When we look carefully at our lives, we see we are both conductor and musician. We decide what music to play, and then we must perform it using an entire orchestra’s worth of instruments. Explore this for yourself. What do you see? In what ways are you leading? What music have you chosen to play, composed of what instruments? When you step into the pit, what is your role? What instruments do you play, and what do you need played around you? Where is more attention, training, or mentoring needed? Are there other players you can collaborate with to help make your concert a success?
I like to tell the true story of Roz Savage. This story is used in the motivation module of the Search Inside Yourself program that I helped develop and teach at Google. When she was thirty-three years old, Roz took a personal-growth workshop, and one of the explorations was to write her own eulogy from two perspectives: one as though she would continue to live on the trajectory of her current life, and another as though she were to live the life she most deeply wanted. Roz began to weep as she wrote, realizing that she was bored and unhappy with her current life, with the safe choices she had made. It was as though in that moment she realized she was living someone else’s life, not her own, and she understood what she really wanted to do. She wanted to do something physical and accomplish a lifelong dream that had been brewing and reoccurring in her heart. She wanted to row a boat across the Atlantic Ocean. After the workshop she left her job and redirected her life. Six months later she became the first woman to single-handedly row a boat across the Atlantic Ocean.
I applaud Roz Savage and the changes she made in her life. Certainly, writing these two eulogies is a great exercise, and I encourage you to try it. It is a powerful way to uncover the deep inner messages we have for ourselves about our lives and the choices we have made. However, the point of Roz’s story isn’t that you have to quit your job, drop everything, and do something spectacular to be fulfilled. The point is to become clear about what truly matters and what doesn’t. Which dominates your life right now? Rap the coffin: Are you enlivened or deadened by what you are doing? I’m reminded of a few lines of poetry from David Whyte:
Anything or anyone
That does not bring you alive
Is too small for you.
Whyte is not instructing us to be grandiose, to quit our boring jobs and our boring friends. Instead, he is asking, Why are you playing it safe? Why are you thinking small? Our constant challenge is not only how to dream big but how to embrace every incidental moment from the widest perspective. What do you really want? And how can you make the life you are living right now feel as fresh, inspiring, and alive as possible?
First, let’s begin to answer some of these “what” questions; below we’ll address “how.”
Here are some basic questions to discover, explore, and quantify your intentions. Some may not apply to your situation; some you have likely considered before. However, as was the case with Tom, when we start to lose our way, it’s vital to review the essentials. Our desires may have changed, and we need to set a new course, identify a new horizon. But most of all, identifying where we mean to go is the necessary first step in getting there.
I recommend writing your answers to these questions in a journal, though they can be just as fruitfully explored with a friend, coach, therapist, or small group of friends or colleagues. As you answer them, you will develop your own list of creative gaps — the projects you want to complete, the skills you want to learn, a business you hope to launch, a book that needs to be written, relationships you’re seeking or hope to improve.
In no particular order, answer one or more of the following questions.
• If money weren’t an issue — that is, if you had all the resources you needed — what would you do? What problems would you want to solve? What type of life would you lead?
• What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of partner, parent, child, sibling, human being? What personal qualities do you most admire in relationships? How would you respond to the question, Who are you as a leader?
• Why are you here on this planet? Do you feel a larger sense of social purpose or calling?
• What do you wish you could do to make the world a more beautiful place? What everyday things, what huge things?
• In your current life, what problems do you wish you could solve? Be specific. If you want more money, space, or time, how much? If the problems are with or at work, what’s your ideal scenario?
• In your current life, what would increase your joy? Do you play, laugh, and love as much as you want? What activities have you always wanted to do but haven’t yet, or wish you could do more often?
Talking about, writing, and exploring our vision of what we truly want can be difficult, uncomfortable, and even painful. We become all too aware of the gap between where we are and where we want to be, and examining that distance takes courage, patience, and a good deal of support. Like the archetypal hero, we see our dreadful inadequacies and the world’s insurmountable challenges and become afraid. We refuse the call:
“I would like to start a company, but I don’t have . . .”
“I would like a new career, but I can’t leave my job because . . .”
“I would like to be in a loving relationship, but it won’t happen for me because I’m . . .”
“I would like to exercise, eat healthy food, meditate, travel [and so on], but I can’t because . . .”
From where we stand right now, our goals, dreams, and visions may seem unrealistic or even impossible. “There’s no way I can have what I really want because I’ve got a family to support. I don’t have the resources.” Our dreams can make us uncomfortable and uneasy, and so we may find ways not to dream.
We become vague, unclear with ourselves: “Oh, I don’t really know what I want to do with my life.”
We bury our heads: “I’m way too busy to think about what I really want to do.”
We practice avoidance: “I’ll do what I want when the kids are grown, the house is paid off, the recession is over.”
We play it safe: “All I want is an easy life free of stress and worry.”
But here we come upon a couple of hard truths and a paradox: One is, if we deny our passions, we can never be truly happy, and it will be difficult or impossible to find fulfillment. The other is, pursuing our dreams involves lots of stress and worry, and no matter how hard we try, we may never reach our ultimate goals. At least, not entirely or in the ways we imagine. However, strangely enough, if we follow the Way-seeking path, we won’t be disappointed.
In my experience, when we honor the call and risk stepping into the gap, we enter a creative realm that changes us from the inside out. When we fight for change, we become changed, and there is literally no telling where that path will take us. Embracing this transformative effort becomes its own reward, and we sometimes prefer where it leads us to wherever it was we once thought we wanted to go. This is why I like to call the distance between our vision and our current situation a creative gap or a creative opening. And when it comes to creative openings, being uncomfortable and feeling tension are positive! Greet these feelings with enthusiasm! True creativity involves the discomfort, tension, and excitement of real risk. You are stretching yourself outside of your comfort zone, entering unknown terrain. Why do we feel discomfort and tension when giving a talk, leading a meeting, applying for a job? In all cases, it is like the tightrope walker: our vision turns to the possibility of falling, of failing. No one wants to fall or fail. The remedy for this is easy: just stay off the rope. But the price tag for this choice can be your growth and development, your happiness, even your soul. Accept where you are, make the changes necessary to move toward where you want to be, and slowly you will find yourself inching out and balancing successfully on that rope, sometimes unexpectedly failing, but then getting back up more skillfully.
When you feel tense and uncomfortable, examine those feelings; don’t avoid them. These reactions can point to creative openings, and they can be used like alerts: “Ah, here is the Way-seeking path I was looking for!” Here are some ways avoidance arises and undermines our ability to take action.
• We don’t have a clear picture of reality, of our current situation, and we are too uncomfortable to look closely and deeply. We allow this lack of clarity to stop us from taking action.
• We are stressed and fearful for no apparent reason. We suspect some kind of change is imminent. This is a creative opportunity waiting to be recognized.
• We feel unable or powerless to take successful action regarding the things we care about.
• We feel unworthy of what we want. We don’t feel we deserve what we dream. Our fears of inadequacy keep us from learning new skills and competencies.
We also have numerous unhelpful coping strategies that keep us from clearly seeing and acting upon these creative openings. These are ways we minimize our uncomfortable feelings, to keep our fear of falling or failing at bay. If you notice any of these in your own life, use them as indications of something needing your attention: be curious and interested in feelings of discomfort. The best solution is often to face these resistances directly. Here are a few such self-defeating strategies that can prevent us from staying with our creative gaps.
LOW EXPECTATIONS: We may blunt our fears of failing by aiming low, as if failure will hurt less if we don’t fall very far. This strategy often deadens our spirit and limits our growth. What do you learn by doing only what you already know how to do? What joy in success does that bring? Rather, don’t always play it safe. Raise the rope higher, and try to stay on longer than you think you can manage.
ANXIOUS EXCITABILITY: In the face of a creative opportunity, we may get overwhelmed and come to believe that we need to create more anxiety in order to propel us to achieve our goals. I see this strategy used often in the business world — instead of dealing with the causes of problems, it can seem easier to be constantly putting out fires. Yet this strategy blocks our ability to focus on the real challenges and opportunities of the moment and will likely undermine our success. This can turn into the “I told you so” syndrome: we try, we fail, and then we say, “I told you I’d never succeed because I can’t . . .” This type of anxiety is fear masquerading as excitement, and the cure is to calm down and breathe, put your emotions aside, and focus on the task at hand.
PUSHING THROUGH: This is another strategy I see often in the business world. When creative opportunities arise, our feelings of discomfort push us to work longer and harder. We hope, through relentless effort and sheer willpower, to jump the creative gap all in one go. Then we don’t understand: “I worked so hard — how could I fail?” Quite possibly, we may be working too hard; our fear is causing us to strain and constrict. It is as if we are trying to run across the tightrope before learning to walk; we will lose our balance every time. In this case, the answer may be to relax, proceed more slowly, and pause occasionally to ensure that fear isn’t driving us to rush.
It’s also worth noting that not all anxiety and excitement are the same, even on a physical level. When we act outside of our comfort zone, when we agree to embrace a new task or creative opening, adrenaline courses throughout our body. We may feel pushed and uncomfortable in a way that opens us, stretches us. This is healthy and enlivening; it keeps us balanced on the edge of our seat. It actually improves our focus in the moment. This is the opposite of emotional stress, tension, and fear, which cause cortisol to course throughout our body. This fight-or-flight reaction causes us to constrict and tighten, and too much cortisol can lead to hypertension and is related to heart disease.
This is another reason to take a closer look at our moments of anxiety and excitement when they occur. Either way, they point to creative gaps, but are we approaching these fearfully (and self- defeatingly) or are we approaching them willingly, eagerly? In part, our own health is at stake.
Once you’ve verbalized your dreams — your destination, the place you mean to go — and once you recognize your habitual fear responses (so that you can skillfully work with them), the next task is to take stock of your current situation and measure the distance of the gap between where you are and where you want to be. How will you actually create the changes you want?
To begin, check in with yourself about your life and level of satisfaction right now. Conduct a personal audit, as described in chapter 4 (page 83), but do so with more detail and depth. Your current situation is nearly always more complex and nuanced than you imagine, and any serious goal will likely affect all aspects of your life.
In chapter 2, I described three circles I use for deciding whether to pursue a particular job or work path. These same three “buckets” — impact, joy, and finances — can be effectively used to clarify your current situation. They create an expanded personal audit, a way to take stock of where you are now and get a clearer view of your creative gaps. For this assessment, let’s reverse the order. As in writing a business plan, I like to begin with what is easiest to measure — money — which is also often the most difficult topic to face and grapple with head-on.
As you explore and quantify where you are now, the particular shape of the creative gap will become clearer. Articulating this is how we figure out what specific steps to take. Any large goal will impact our whole lives, and it can be achieved only through numerous smaller goals, stages, and qualities. Measuring the gap is about identifying these things as well, so that we can take the most effective and efficient actions.
The practice of change and acceptance is a dynamic process. Producing the results we want requires that we proactively set out on a path and skillfully move toward accomplishing our vision. We do this by seeing as clearly as possible, developing a plan, and then being responsive and flexible to the changes and challenges that unfold along the way.
A profit-and-loss statement and a balance sheet are essential tools for running a business, and they are useful tools for understanding your current situation. What is your current financial picture? For most of us, this is very basic stuff, and yet I’m often surprised how many people don’t create these tools, in either their business or personal life, or both. However, as you do this, pay attention to more than the numbers on the page; notice your entire self — your breathing, your emotions, your assumptions, and your stories. As you take a financial snapshot and create financial projections, does your breathing change? What emotions arise? Do you notice any loosening or tightening in your jaw, stomach, or back? Just notice. What attitudes arise; what stories do you tell yourself? In this way we bring our financial lives more in alignment with our deepest intentions and motivations.
On a few pieces of paper or a computer spreadsheet, create a profit-and-loss statement, a balance sheet, and a projected profit-and-loss statement or budget for the next twelve months. Do this for your personal finances and, if applicable, for your business.
A balance sheet is sometimes defined as a snapshot of your financial situation. In one column, list your assets: How much money have you saved, and what properties and things do you own? In another column, list your debts: What do you owe to banks, credit card companies, and others? Compare these columns. What is the reality of your current situation?
Then, create a profit-and-loss statement for the past year or the past several months. A profit-and-loss compares your income with your expenses; in contrast to a balance sheet, it describes where money is coming from and what you’re spending it on. Start by listing all your revenue sources and totals. Then list your expenses. For most of us, calculating expenses is easy, sometimes excruciatingly easy. First, write down all of your recurring weekly, monthly, and annual expenses: utility bills, cable and service providers, rent or mortgage, insurance, health care, and so on. Then, get a handle on “petty” expenses: a good exercise is to keep a log of how much money you spend each day for a week. People are often surprised at how those five-dollar lattes, bridge tolls, parking fees, and afternoon snacks add up.
Then, look ahead: create a budget, or projected profit-and-loss statement, for the next twelve months. I find making a row across the top of the page of the next twelve months to be most useful. On the left-hand side of the page, create a column of revenue and expenses. Projecting income can be very difficult to do accurately. An easy place to start is with what your income has been for the past several years; just the facts. Look at your bank statements, and then make your best estimate as to your income for the next twelve months. Then estimate expenses, month by month. A projected budget is particularly revealing and useful and can act as a helpful guide. Put all these financial tools together and you have a good snapshot of your financial picture, now and for the near future. What do you see?
As important, who do you see? What sort of person has this exercise and this portrait revealed? Examine your financial attitudes and habits. Do you spend money too freely or not freely enough? Do you always feel poor or does money come to you and then seem to disappear? Does your impression of how you relate to money actually align with the way you spend or save money? Whatever your money habits are, take stock.
Looking clearly and closely at our financial situation reveals a great deal about our attitudes, habits, and expectations. This can be both satisfying and a relief, when it shines a light on good qualities that may have been hidden, or it can bring up a good deal of avoidance, anxiety, and pain, as we face concrete evidence of our seeming inadequacies, failures, and judgments. It is no wonder that money is named as the most difficult topic for couples to talk about, or that Karen and Thomas (in chapter 4) could look at the same financial data and come to completely opposite conclusions about their financial future. If individuals have such a difficult time openly and skillfully addressing this topic, how much harder to do this with someone else? Many people seem to have creative gaps when it comes to finances. What is enough? Compared to whom? What do you think your income and lifestyle say about who you are? The seemingly straightforward topic of money encompasses many of our deepest assumptions, aspirations, attitudes, and fears. If you feel you don’t have enough money, there is suffering and anxiety. And, strangely enough, having too much money can also be experienced as a burden, eliciting suffering and anxiety.
Conducting a personal audit (as described in chapter 4) should provide you with a snapshot of your daily mood and emotional and physical health. But when we are contemplating a major new goal or life change, we are usually already saying something about how we feel about our current life: what we don’t like and what might truly make us joyful. As we’ve seen, for many of my clients, the impetus for change is a deep dissatisfaction with where they are. Clarify that right now. Make a series of lists or assessments that look separately at four different areas: work, family, community, and spiritual practice.
What do you like and love in your life now? What makes you happy in your work, your relationships, your community, and your spiritual practice? What is in alignment with your needs, desires, hopes, and dreams? Be specific. These lists comprise the things we’d like to keep, whatever change we make.
Then, make separate lists for what’s not working. What’s missing, bothering you, unfinished, or not showing up at all in your work, your relationships, your community, and your spiritual practice? Just take stock.
One client I worked with created this sort of document and was surprised to find things weren’t as distressing as he imagined. You may be closer to your goals than you think in certain areas; sometimes dissatisfactions in one aspect of our lives leads us to forget or ignore what’s working well. So, when it comes time below to write the business plan, consider whether changes to fix what isn’t working might also negatively impact what is working. This is another reason to approach large goals with small steps — so we can adjust if our strategies are causing more harm than good.
How do you define impact? What is meaningful to you? Again, inherent in your vision for what you want will be an expression of the kind of positive impact you want to have. If this wasn’t directly stated when you wrote your vision, do so now. Then, take a look at the same four areas above — your work, your family, your community, and your spiritual life — and assess how you are currently doing. What sort of impact do you have in each area? Is there anything missing right now? Be as specific and honest as you can; don’t oversell or undersell your influence. As with joy, consider whether you are fully appreciating all the impacts you currently have. Also, be forthright if you notice negative impacts; note them without judgment. Consider both yourself and others: are the impacts always the same or aligned? Consider: Do you hold yourself back from having more impact in your current situation?
Sekito Kisen, an eighth-century Chinese Zen teacher, said, “If you don’t know the path right in front of you, how will you know when you are on it?” Sounds to me like this Zen teacher would have been an excellent business coach. I’m surprised by how many individuals and businesses, small and large, don’t have a plan. They don’t have clear goals and budgets; they lack a set of benchmarks for the next quarter. It seems that when the business is working well, it can be easier to just keep moving ahead. Who needs a plan? And when business is not working well, who has time for planning? The same dynamic seems to hold true for our personal lives (and finances).
Can you recognize when you are on, and when you fall off, the path? Are you simply accepting that whatever effort you make is all you can do? Now, let’s write a business plan. At the very least, it is excellent practice for quantifying amorphous qualities like our sense of satisfaction and providing a much-needed reality check. This plan can be applied to a particular project you are working toward, a business endeavor, or another aspect of your life. It is, at heart, a story, just like the hero’s journey, and similar steps apply: vision, finances, guides, obstacles, and next steps or actions.
As you develop your plans, regard this as a living document, something to amend and revise as you proceed. In fact, make a point to revisit your business plan periodically, at least twice a year, to see how you’re doing, celebrate progress, and adjust expectations.
By now, you have already articulated your vision. Now, describe it in clear, succinct, concrete terms. Contained within the vision statement should be a description for how you will accomplish it, or what the endpoint looks like. What concrete, measurable results do you hope for? What is the purpose and mission of your project, your business, your life? The vision can be large and audacious or more limited in scope.
For instance, I now work with an organization called Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to training leaders in mindfulness and emotional intelligence. Our vision statement is very simple: Enlightened Leaders Worldwide. Our mission is to bring more happiness and more peace to the world.
With your balance sheet and profit-and-loss statements completed, you’re in position to look ahead and visualize the future in as much detail and openness as possible. Start to put numbers and dates to this vision. One month, six months, and one year from now, what might your expenses and income be as you pursue your goal? Are there benchmarks that you need to meet by certain dates (given how much money or resources you have right now)? Project what seems likely and fill in the details the best you can. Seek to balance your expectations — not too optimistic, not too conservative. Projecting expenses is generally brutally easier and much more predictable than calculating potential income. Try several possible scenarios, based on likely outcomes; as you define steps and actions below, match them with financial expectations. Make it an exploration, a pleasant and eye-opening exploration.
Then at the end of each month, it is invaluable for you to compare actual results to projections. This is how you learn to make needed adjustments in your thinking and planning and keep moving forward.
Accomplishing any vision involves the help, support, and guidance of others. Identify the people, talents, guides, and connections you will need in order to succeed, and write them by name in your business plan. Specify how and when you will contact each one. What will you ask of them? If you will hire people for certain jobs, specify a budget for them, along with a date when you hope their work will start and finish.
By measuring the gap, you have already identified many of the challenges and obstacles you face. List each one in the business plan in direct terms, along with an indication of how you will address it. These challenges can be broken into categories, if it’s helpful to think of them that way. The two main categories are external and internal challenges. First, what resources do you need that you don’t currently possess, and how will you get them? This could be money, technology, or finding the right people to work with. If it’s a business goal, you may be challenged by competition and the need to identify and get the attention of an audience or customer base.
Then there are the internal challenges. What skills do you need to learn or improve? What habits, attitudes, or self-defeating patterns get in your way? Shed as much light on these as possible. Be honest about these challenges: if you’re not a morning person, and your plan calls for you to get up early, how will you address this?
Finally, all of this thinking and strategizing leads to the heart of the plan itself. What are you going to do? What steps will you take, and when? What are your specific goals, benchmarks, and timelines? Merge all of the thinking you’ve done so far into a series of clear, concrete steps that describe what you hope to accomplish, and how.
For instance, I had a client whose goal was to start a business. As a general vision statement, it’s fine to write, “I plan to create a successful gardening company,” but as an action step in a business plan, this is too vague. Instead, phrase action steps in ways that include a time frame, cost, support network, and anticipated outcome. For her plan, my client revised her goal as follows: “I plan to create a freelance gardening and garden consulting company. My goal is to bring in revenue of $7,500 per month by the twelfth month of operations, with net income of $5,000 per month.” The client then wrote a detailed marketing plan, a social media strategy, and an operations plan to support her financial projections.
A coaching client of mine, a successful entrepreneur and scientist, once showed me his happiness assessment. Every day he ranked on a scale from 1 to 10 how he was performing on a variety of areas: work, relationship, spiritual practice, hobbies, exercise, and a few others. He would then calculate an average of these numbers to determine his daily overall happiness quotient. He showed me a chart he kept, tracking the daily rises and falls of this measure. It looked much like the Dow Jones stock market index, with its various trends up and down, seesawing between deep valleys and steep climbs.
I admired his effort to pay attention to and measure his level of happiness. This can be a useful self-awareness tool. He used this tool to determine which parts of his life needed more focus and attention. You, too, could use this approach to provide a quick, daily snapshot.
But I was concerned that he was being aggressively judgmental and hard on himself. His numbers were obviously subjective; after all, he was his own judge, and a harsh one. I suggested that he also keep another version of his happiness index. For this version, I asked that, every day, he rate himself a perfect 10 in every category of his life: work, relationship, spiritual practice, hobbies, exercise. On this second chart no improvement is necessary, or even possible. It represents complete and utter acceptance of one’s life right now, in this moment. Complete appreciation, satisfaction with what is.
I hoped, by keeping both charts, he could practice fighting for change and complete acceptance. And that each might help inform the other. Too much driving change, especially when measured solely by judgment and criticism, can lead to a state of constant striving and result in emotional burnout. Too much acceptance can lead to passivity. The goal is not to find a middle spot but to be adept at both — fighting for change and accepting what is.
Zen master Joshu is often regarded as one of the greatest Zen teachers. He lived during the Tang dynasty in ninth-century China. Collections of Zen stories contain many of his colorful, playful, and paradoxical teachings. One story in particular is quite succinct, and famous, and speaks directly to the topic of accepting what is. This story describes how one evening Joshu addressed a large assembly of monks. He said, “The Ultimate Path is without difficulty. Just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, this is picking and choosing, this is clarity. This old monk does not abide within clarity.”
The first lines are very well known in the Zen world, and I quote them often: “The Ultimate Path is without difficulty. Just avoid picking and choosing.” This is a caution about judgment. However, I’d forgotten the last two lines of this story, which are rarely quoted and much less well known: “As soon as there are words spoken, this is picking and choosing, this is clarity. This old monk does not abide within clarity.”
This brought me up short and even gave me chills. How could I explain anything, much less this teaching, which advises against both words and clarity? Writing this book, I am caught in paradox. The moment we voice our desires, explain our lives, write our business plan, we lose the inexpressible nature of the Ultimate Path. How is this so? More than once, I have found myself surprised by paradox, whose insights are more clear than clear, providing a clarity that is not clarity. I think Joshu might agree with this claim. When we choose one side or the other, it may appear as clear, but something essential is left out.
I had lunch recently with my friend Kaz Tanahashi, a world- renowned calligrapher and translator. He is also one of the most content, happy, and productive people I know. Kaz travels throughout the world teaching calligraphy and leading Zen retreats. He told me that upon returning from his travels recently someone asked him, “What’s your favorite city?” What a strange question, he thought. He wondered: If he named a favorite city, then when traveling to a city he hadn’t named, would he enjoy this city less? He answered by saying, “There are things I like about all the cities I visit.”
Of course, we are assessing, discerning, and “picking and choosing” all the time. We have to. I pick and choose these words. We pick and choose our goals. At the same time, Kaz and Joshu are suggesting that we not fall into a trap when measuring, when we reduce the value of our experiences, and the quality of our lives, by preferring some things and not others, by pitting a favorite against everything that doesn’t qualify as a favorite.
I have the same ambivalence with the popular notion of a bucket list — the list of things to do or places to visit before you die. It’s a terrific idea for focusing your attention on how to change your life to do the things that really matter to you. But it leaves out acceptance and gratitude. Despite fighting for change, we should recognize that there is nothing lacking from our lives. Our lives are perfect in this moment just as they are. We should be ready to let go, to die today, with open hearts and a sense of profound acceptance and satisfaction.
Buddha described the practice of acceptance this way: If you put a handful of salt into a small bowl of water, the water will be too salty to drink. If you take the same amount of salt and pour it into a river, the water will be drinkable, without any taste of the salt. If your heart is limited, one unkind word or judgment can cause you to suffer. If your heart is large, an unkind word or deed will have little power for you.
What a terrific teaching! Acceptance isn’t a technique or something that you can learn by reading a book — not even this book, I’m afraid. It is essentially opening your heart, living with an open heart, working with an open heart. And this is not easy because we are always so profoundly picking and choosing, limiting and judging ourselves and others, our experience, our life. Your life is meaningful to you no matter what you do. How can you pick and choose, then let go of picking and choosing and treasure each moment?
Imagine, just for these next few minutes, that there is absolutely nothing lacking from your life right now. Begin with your list of projects. Imagine that you’ve either completed them or let them go. For whatever reason, your list of projects is empty, complete. No more articles or books to write. No more languages to learn, skills to improve. The way you dance now, fine; your current cooking skills, also fine.
Whatever self-help plan this chapter has led you to develop, imagine it is complete. Nothing left to do. Add to this your plans for others — children, parents, partner, friends. All the people you want to change, for the better — this list is complete or empty. Everyone in your life is providing everything you want from them. Picture nothing left to add, change, or improve.
Now, just for this moment, notice whatever you are feeling, touching, hearing, seeing, tasting. Let your senses come alive.
See if you can be curious without picking and choosing. How does it feel? Who are you without your judgments? Just notice this person, without trying to do anything extra.
I was recently interviewed by a major national magazine for a story they were writing about laziness. Since I’m the author of a book called Less, they apparently thought I’d be a good spokesperson.
I initially resisted the label of laziness and attempted to reframe the discussion, talking not about laziness but about mindfulness. I began the interview by quoting Brother David Steindl-Rast: “The antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest; the antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.” I then launched into the topic of meaning and mindfulness, of acceptance and how doing less is not being lazy.
The young woman interviewing me interrupted and said, “You don’t understand. This article is about laziness. Our readers, soccer moms and middle-aged women, are burned-out and exhausted. We want them to know that being lazy is a good thing.”
I needed to think quickly on my feet. To give the writer what she wanted, I needed to change my usual view of myself and the world. Could I accept, openly and honestly, this new framework that was being presented to me? Could I promote laziness?
“Well, my wife and I just took the month of September off and traveled around Europe. And when I cook in the kitchen, I’m always trying to do the most with the least amount of effort. And I take a nap in the middle of the day, almost every day. How’s that for laziness?”
“That’s what I’m looking for!” the interviewer said.
I kept going and really got into it: when I’m organizing my schedule, I try to drive as little as possible; recently at the farmer’s market, I’ve been buying a number of prepared and frozen food items that don’t require cooking. I go for a walk nearly every day. I love relaxing, playing, looking for ways to get the most done with the least amount of effort. When the interview was finished, the interviewer thanked me profusely. She had much more material than she needed.
It was an eye-opening experience. Among the CEOs and executives in my coaching practice, lazy is a four-letter word. And I don’t usually think of the things I mentioned as laziness, but if framing it in this way is helpful, I’ll gladly become a proponent of laziness.
Now, as a recognized expert on the topic, I highly recommend laziness. Is it bad? Only if that’s what you pick and choose. Many of my coaching clients also see acceptance as a dirty word, as a euphemism for “giving up” or “not trying.” Certainly, acceptance has a potentially negative side. At what point does acceptance become passivity; when does taking naps and going for walks become goofing off? I won’t say! But if laziness is what some people call taking care of ourselves in the midst of demanding and often overbusy lives, I’m all for it.
No need to feel guilty. Relax. Practice pausing. Go for long walks. Read poetry in the middle of the day. Take a weekly Sabbath. Take that much-needed break or vacation. Take time each day to just appreciate being alive. These are all valuable practices that can help lead to wholeheartedness. Indeed, go back and insert these things into your business plan. Perhaps, by taking time to accept your life just as it is, you might find yourself better prepared and energized to fight for important changes.
After nearly thirty years of marriage, one filled with the usual and unusual ups and downs of any long-term relationship, my wife and I decided to have a recommitment ceremony in our home. We invited a small group of close friends, people who had known us for many years. Most had been our friends since before our marriage, and most had themselves been in long-term marriages. During the ceremony that we designed, we asked each person in attendance to speak to the central issue of the ceremony: What is the secret of long-term relationships? There were many wise and useful responses. I was sorry that we didn’t record them all.
To me, the most memorable response was from a woman who had been married to her husband for over thirty years. They were both very accomplished people, with two very successful grown children. The wife looked at her husband and said, “The secret to long-term relationships is to constantly lower your standards.” Of course, everyone laughed. Then she went on to say that the secret of long-term relationships is to realize that love includes hatred and pain and difficulty, as well as joy and happiness and serenity.
But I felt a deeper layer of helpfulness to what she said. The way I heard her answer is that the secret of long-term relationships is just to love — just love without comparing, without criticizing, without measuring. Accept yourself and your partner with an open and loving heart. Love and see what happens without expectations.
Or, to put her offering another way: How do you avoid the seemingly inevitable accumulation of disappointments that can eat away at loving relationships over time? Constantly lowering your standards, in this context, means to forget standards: yours and even your spouse’s. It means, strange as it sounds, to forget the constant and calculated measurements of who you are and who your partner is and what you need in terms of that person. These standards are almost always one-sided and to varying degrees inaccurate. Our expectations of the other person not only are unhelpful but can be truly harmful to a marriage or long-term relationship. What happens as soon as we compare our partner to our standards and find him or her wanting? We imply, and may come to believe, that there must be someone better out there, a marriage or relationship that is more perfect, a type of union more satisfying than the one we have. Reality is not good enough.
I’ve noticed that this dynamic applies within any relationship, including our relationship with ourselves, which is the longest-term relationship we have. Our list of disappointments with others sometimes doesn’t hold a candle to the list we create for ourselves. In my leadership development practice, in working with teams, and in all the relationships that I have been part of, I’ve seen that whenever people go down the road of identifying right and wrong, of who did (or did not do) what to whom, of who is or isn’t measuring up to a preconceived image, it almost always leads to the same place. Someone, or everyone, feels hurt, and trust, intimacy, and understanding suffer. People shut down and become even less effective. In order for us to grow, to feel alive, it is valuable to aim high and work hard to bridge our creative gaps, and accept the results with gratitude. Set high standards, then forget about your standards. Open your heart. Fight for change. Accept what is.